Lot Essay
A study for the figure of Erminia, and the only surviving drawing related to Erminia discovering the wounded body of Tancred (fig.1), recently acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland, and formerly at Castle Howard, Yorkshire.
Guercino chose to depict the most dramatic moment of the subject, taken from Tasso's La Gerusalemme Liberata: The painting shows Erminia, in full flight, discovering the reclining body of Tancred, who was severely wounded during the attack on Jerusalem. The figure standing above the hero is Vafrino, the soldier's armour-bearer. The scene represented is different from the moment usually depicted which shows Erminia attending to Tancred's wounds, as in Agostino Carracci's etching of 1590, Illustrated Bartsch, XVIII, [190].
The present drawing corresponds closely with the painting, including such details as the flowing drapery on the left leg of Erminia. The only significant differences concern the style of Erminia's clothes, such as the bodice which is laced in the drawing but made from one piece of cloth in the painting.
The painting was commissioned in 1648 by Cardinal Fabrizio Savelli (d. 1659), the Papal Legate in Bologna from 1648-51. About thirty years earlier Guercino had already treated the subject in the painting now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
The drawing's style is characteristic of a date around 1650, and is closely related to two others: the first, sold at Christie's, London, 14 April, 1992, lot 109, shows studies of The penitent Magdalen, and is related to a picture commissioned by Savelli in 1649. The second drawing, at Windsor Castle, represents Ecce Homo, D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, no. 126, pl. 132, and is a study for a painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, datable to 1647.
Sir Denis Mahon has kindly confirmed the attribution.
Guercino chose to depict the most dramatic moment of the subject, taken from Tasso's La Gerusalemme Liberata: The painting shows Erminia, in full flight, discovering the reclining body of Tancred, who was severely wounded during the attack on Jerusalem. The figure standing above the hero is Vafrino, the soldier's armour-bearer. The scene represented is different from the moment usually depicted which shows Erminia attending to Tancred's wounds, as in Agostino Carracci's etching of 1590, Illustrated Bartsch, XVIII, [190].
The present drawing corresponds closely with the painting, including such details as the flowing drapery on the left leg of Erminia. The only significant differences concern the style of Erminia's clothes, such as the bodice which is laced in the drawing but made from one piece of cloth in the painting.
The painting was commissioned in 1648 by Cardinal Fabrizio Savelli (d. 1659), the Papal Legate in Bologna from 1648-51. About thirty years earlier Guercino had already treated the subject in the painting now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome.
The drawing's style is characteristic of a date around 1650, and is closely related to two others: the first, sold at Christie's, London, 14 April, 1992, lot 109, shows studies of The penitent Magdalen, and is related to a picture commissioned by Savelli in 1649. The second drawing, at Windsor Castle, represents Ecce Homo, D. Mahon and N. Turner, The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, no. 126, pl. 132, and is a study for a painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, datable to 1647.
Sir Denis Mahon has kindly confirmed the attribution.